All things worth thinking and knowing need to be retold. And I would say that the central point of one of CS Lewis’s most well-known essays, “Learning in War-Time”, is “retold”—even improved upon—with personal depth by Irena Dragaš Jansen here. Please read.
Reading a short essay this morning from James Calvin Schaap, I came across something that makes perfect sense of how terrible Levy’s The Will to See is. Schaap mentions that great stories are shaped like C’s in that they don’t complete themselves but make room for the reader. Levy’s book is pure ego firmly encircled in a bold O—there is absolutely nothing in the book for a reader’s imagination or discovery and, therefore, no enlightenment at all.
Simone Weil:
Quit reading (2021): The Will to See by Bernard-Henri Levy 📚
Couldn’t make it past the second chapter. It’s a shame that such a great title and subject is wasted, wasted, wasted on such self-absorbed rambling. If you want to know the most egotistical way to care about what goes on in the world, then I highly recommend this book.
One last demo day and (maybe) last day to ski the Ghee
Very sad to hear about Paul Farmer. I remember my biology program professor being one of his biggest fans. This is something I wrote about him in her world health class two years ago.
Finished reading (2021): Light Perpetual: A Novel by Francis Spufford 📚
In many ways a very simple novel, though its grander picture is anything but. Some thoughts, here.